Author Topic: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer  (Read 29934 times)

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Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #120 on: November 19, 2016, 11:33:33 AM »
wow, it does sound great in that video! I had a similar problem with the megasquirt early-on, the flyback mosfets for the injectors failed, also burning up a trace. However, with those gone, the injectors would stay on longer than the pulsewidth due to their own impedence, which effectively was delivering about 30% more fuel than I was asking for. That took a couple days of troubleshooting to find - by the end of it I had de-soldered and rebuilt most of the injector circuits

Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #121 on: November 20, 2016, 06:36:14 PM »
The Next rallycross is Dec 3rd so in between now and then I need to flush the brake fluid, replace front pads/rotors. I just got stoptech slotted rotors from rockauto at a very good price so I decided to get a matching pair for the front of my rx7. some speeds were top of 2nd gear of me and then it was followed by very tight turn but without braking confidence it was very difficult to shed that speed and keep up with momentum.

this last rallycross was a good shakedown but I will also have to add a cat for stage rally rules and I still have an existing exhaust leak at my only flange surface... so a v-band flange setup should clear that up and instead of a 100% rigid exhaust a flexpipe will added to ensure gasket function retention better and less stress of the engine block studs.

I'm toying with sno*drift this year as my first rally... its close and I know the roads and area very well and if you've been following my thread you know I love going sideways.

I have a small list of things to change to be ready for this and almost 2 months to do so...





This would be my 10th consecutive sno*drift but 1st participation and with the whole RA v ARA nonsense going on right now I wonder if there will be a 2018 sno*drift...

Offline FCwidman

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #122 on: November 24, 2016, 12:08:43 PM »
would be great to see you at sno* drift, the Ferris Bulldog motorsports club will be there to cheer you and dylan Helferich on!

Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #123 on: November 28, 2016, 08:00:48 AM »
Dylan is a bulldog too?

Offline FCwidman

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #124 on: December 07, 2016, 10:21:49 PM »
yeah he was in computer science or something, no idea what years he was there though.

Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #125 on: February 06, 2017, 09:50:08 AM »
Okay so now I have some overdue updates to share just been too busy wrenching to be taking photos and sharing stories  However that has changed but let’s bring you up to speed first 

After the brakes were installed and I broke my stud fix We had to get surgical and I had to trim a little on the baseplate and cut/peel away some interior metal to get at the spot welds for the stud as you can see here:



With those ground down a quick hit of the hammer and it popped up!



It is a one piece multi staged tapered and splined bolt so building a new one would be tough and expensive but luckily a buddy of mine has a rusted out parts car (read shell) that we managed to salvage this piece from and re-install it into the rally car! (God I love saying that!)




Prepped the surface and was ready to weld the new one in place and everything bolted together like it should!

Now moving on to the fun stuff instead of fixing my faults… I installed the battle version rear toe links as the ones on the car were original to the car from 86 – the bushings were starting to go and these are lighter and stronger. However the small camber links that link the rear lower control arm to the subframe were also original to the car and developed a clunk in its bushing after the 1st service at sno*drift – these are no longer available from mazda but I think a mcmaster carr heim joint should be sufficient. Now I didn’t have to remove the rear subframe to do the toe links or probably even to fix the subframe chassis stud but it helped. Once we reinstalled that it was time to drop the gas tank because we need gas tank skid protection. If you noticed in the other older photos of the underbody the gas tank is well exposed which is a big no no for rally but perfectly fine for rallycross.




So we followed the design of the front but made it serviceable because I need to remove the brace to drain the oil (potentially) or at least when I drop the subframe or diff. We built it out of over/under sized C channel and welded it together, the bottom part unbolts and then its just left with the 2 large C channels that are welded to the frame rail, since the diff cover is aluminum this hangs a little lower to be protection for the diff as well as the gas tank.



So that was the front part of the skid plate the other part was cutting out the rusted wheel well portion and adding L bracket bracing and thicker (18 gauge) sheet of steel, from there we welded and boxed in a C channel with weld nuts.



Now with these 2 anchor points I ran a partially bent piece of 3/16th 3” wide and ran from brace to brace so I can attach the HPDE sheet




Ta da!



Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #126 on: February 06, 2017, 09:50:44 AM »
Now since I had some “free time” I was chasing what I thought was a rear main seal or the o-ring that goes around the stationary gear oil leak so to do so you need to pull the engine. (for either one of them)



But when I pulled it I realized it was the pan gasket and the rear main/rear stat gear o-ring was fine! No witness marks and dry as a bone! So I pulled the engine and ordered up an oil pan brace and new hardware to hopefully stop this pesky leak. I had to tear apart the baffle and the oil pan constantly cleaning and scraping it was aweful. It took a few days of keeping the garage at 60 degrees and letting the carb clean evaporate and ensure no dirt or dust or oil was left on the gasket surfaces, chase all threads with your taps and add blue Loctite to each new bolt and follow the RTV torque procedure – lets see if this lasts me more than a year. Part of the reason is that I think my solid engine mounts are too stiff so its shaking bolts loose. I may opt to a poly or mazdaspeed hardened rubber in the near future because oil pan gasket leaks are a multi day labor intensive process to do it right and I hate every minute of it. So with that all settled a few days later I still had the engine out of the car I had ordered up a new spec clutch.





This is WITH the optional aluminum billet cover ($200 extra) which was a waste of time and money, the weight savings was negligible and I would not do it again if I had an option.  That being said this is the stage 3 cutch which is a sprung hub multi puck design but it is not an organic disc so you can slip/bang/heat the crap out of it and it will hold pressure fine. This is easier on the flywheel and longer lasting.

With the engine re-installed it was time to move on to a lot of little things that I will gloss over required for rally like fire extinguishers, spare tool bag, spill kit/first aid and co –driver light etc etc etc except this part…

You need DOT triangles and these things are HEAVY, they have metal dust in the base as an achor, but the rules let you empty them. Which dropped a lot of mass – then to attach them I used a small section of C-channel from earlier and welded it to the floor face down but I kept a plastic geartie in the channel so I could tie it together and I just jammed all 3 right next to the co –driver so he can hop out and deploy them quickly if (when) we get stuck on stage.




More rally spec stuff required so we had to add a catalytic convertor…






But you will notice if you are sharp that there is some extra goodies on the exhaust – went to V-band to avoid pesky gasket failures (sick and tired of these gaskets ALWAYS POPING!) and a small flex section to release some stress from the engine studs since this exhaust is pretty heavy. This cat glows like a Newport – pretty snazzy looking but because of I trimmed the bumper a bit where it goes inboard to the car and added a thin aluminum heat shield so I don’t melt the bumper or set it on fire as it already started to melt in some spots on the several mile commute back from my buddies place where we did the welding.

It quieted it down a bit to the point where we may remove the resonator…

So after that I got some help and fine tuned the engine installed the door panels (pics to come soon) and we were ready for an alignment!



Gave a little more for the rear due to the suspension geometry and it really payed off, car felt fantastic – all the R&R of the subframe and replacing the front ball joints for new ones (just for safety sake) an alignment was needed.

Then only 1 day before Recce we have the car on the trailer and all the gear loaded up with the spares… sno*drift bound!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Yes there is no snow there and yes I did bring mud tires just in case but we ended up not needing them.  Tuesday night we had made and attached the front mudflaps and tossed all the stickers on - #74 was taken by someone else so I will be using 174 from now on.


Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #127 on: February 06, 2017, 10:47:38 AM »






So now its sno*drift – this is a story in itself (as usual) but overall it was a wonderful experience, Recce was kind of icy/muddy/slushy hard to predict the grip but later that night the temps dropped and snow fell and it was quite icy, which is fine by me – its very predictable… you basically have no grip and you only have momentum and direction with lots of drifty slidey angles of fun-ness….

So we start day 1, make it to the first service, managed to loose a balljoint nut and my shock assembly bolts to the knuckle became loose, other than that no real issues  We were getting used to the notes and started to get into the groove a bit although we did stuff it a few times gently.. but gently enough for us the need to get out of the car and push or get spectators to push. Now – time to get to ready for the night stages… and as I launch the rally lights are in full force and the E-fan kicks on as I grab 2nd gear hard and then BOOOM. Well more like a silent awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww because I lost power to my dashboard on the EFI side so we push the car out of the control zone and start diaging and realize that we have blown a fuse that linked 2 fuse boxes together but by this time we had not the right tools or spare parts to repair and sweep had passed us and we were DNF on day one, easy beer fix later that night and we re-enter the rally day two!

Getting more confident in the notes and pushing the car on some spots caused us to have some competitive stage times, however some of that with some note errors led me to stuff it on some low speed corners requiring a few pulls and pushes to get through Saturday. On SS6 we were 14th overall on that stage, 3rd in 2wd, 2nd in G2 and fastest RWD for that stage, we beat a lot of better prepped AWD cars that stage so it felt good. However with this confidence I managed to cause a few snowbanks which dropped us back from 26th overall to last but we did finish our 1st stage rally and you only get one chance at that!  Saturday’s event went smoother for service no real issues just check stuff over and all was good, the car held up well and performed great. Now I need to get adjusted to the speed of the sport.

And with that being said, here are the action shots!









   
















Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #128 on: February 06, 2017, 02:47:45 PM »
It certainly looks like you had a blast! I bet it was a ton of fun

Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #129 on: February 07, 2017, 12:13:45 PM »
it was awesome! I can't wait to go back - I took video of most of the stages we have them up on the FB page:

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Offline ITSWILL

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #130 on: February 08, 2017, 04:39:00 AM »
I think I need to do this with the ice racing civic next year.
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Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #131 on: April 03, 2017, 09:16:42 AM »
Got it Dyno'd last week at my friends shop needless to say I am happy with the numbers, and with a redline of 9000rpm its great to have that much over-rev capability.



the last engine and setup dynoed at 132whp and 121tq @ 6400rpm this is was 182whp and 134tq @7500rpm but even the old engine managed to run a 14.9 in the quarter mile at 81MPH I will be curious to see if this can dip into the 13's or a 14 flat this spring with the gearing improvements and mass reductions.

More power can be gained by shortening the intake runners since they are about 24" long, I'm tempted to toss on the S5 upper intake manifold and see how that affects the numbers but in reality that is too long too. We managed to pick up about 20hp across the range from the base tune that got me through sno*drift. Now I just need to put some attention in a few areas then get more seat time!
« Last Edit: April 03, 2017, 09:19:59 AM by fidelity101 »

Offline murz

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #132 on: April 04, 2017, 10:44:22 AM »
Very impressive, I think your only limitation is the intake now. Are you able to run modified intakes?
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Offline fidelity101

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #133 on: April 05, 2017, 07:21:49 AM »
nope! and technically I shouldn't have a streetport... but when I race with other organizations its fine.

Offline ~Groll69~

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Re: FC Rallycross/Stage Rally/Ice Racer
« Reply #134 on: April 05, 2017, 12:15:51 PM »
what if you enlarged the intake holes of the throttle body?  Granted you need new throttle plates too, but that would allow you to have some increased air flow through it.  I forget the company that makes them, but they do require your intake in order to make it.
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